Marinated lampreys: how to prepare a delicacy at home

Lampreys

Lamprey is neither fish nor meat, but an interesting animal of the cyclostome class. The season for catching it and selling it at any fish stalls has recently begun. Walking past the fish department, you can see leech-like fish swarming in the foam boxes. There are many ways to cook lamprey, but my favorite is the marinated lamprey recipe.

The holidays are coming soon. And that means guests. At your request, “you want something like that,” I am publishing a recipe for preparing an amazing delicacy that will decorate with its presence both a festive table and pleasantly diversify your daily diet. We will talk about lampreys, which literally means “stone lickers.” Why amazing? During my life I had to gut hundreds of lampreys and found nothing in its belly except a single small small intestine

And their skin mucus is very poisonous and causes serious poisoning, so you need to prepare them with great care and strictly follow the step-by-step recipe. At their core, lampreys are generally parasites that attach themselves to individuals of large breeds

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Pickled lampreys keep well in the cold. The recipe for preparing this seafood is simple, but the preparation process is very painstaking. Lampreys are served as an independent dish. They do not require an additional side dish. Seafood is often consumed with beer and dry white wine. Decorate the dish with parsley sprigs, fresh cucumber slices and green salad leaves.

How to cook lamprey at home

The lamprey has no scales, bones or entrails, but its body is covered with mucus. Therefore, this fish needs to be washed well to remove harmful substances from the surface of its body. Only then can you fry or marinate the lamprey. At 80 C the poison is completely destroyed.

Now start cooking:

1. Sprinkle salt on the lamprey. For 1 kg of carcass you need 3 tbsp. l. salt. Leave the carcasses for 1 hour. After sprinkling with salt, the mucus is removed more easily.
2. Cut off the head, drain the blood and rub the whole body of the fish with salt again. After this, cut the belly, remove the intestines and rinse all the fish with fresh water.
3. Preheat the oven to 190–200 C and place the lampreys on a baking sheet. Bake them for 30 minutes.
4. Collect any juice that accumulates after cooking. Mix it with white wine and wine vinegar. Stir the sauce and pour it over the dish.

Fried lamprey is not stored, but eaten immediately after cooking, as its fat quickly oxidizes and goes rancid. You can also prepare a marinade for lamprey from salt, sugar, vinegar and spices. Keep the fried fish in it for several days in the refrigerator. This will only make it tastier.

Calorie content, composition and beneficial properties

The appearance of the lamprey resembles a large sea worm or eel. The main feature is toxic mucus on the body, from which the carcass must be thoroughly cleaned. Properly prepared river fish fillet has several health benefits:

• contains many vitamins and minerals that ensure stable functioning of the cardiovascular and nervous systems;
• meat has a positive effect on the musculoskeletal system;
• the microelements included in the composition increase visual acuity and improve brain function;
• Fish contains polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are necessary for vascular health and help fight bad cholesterol.

The smoking process has a gentle effect on lamprey meat, preserving up to 80% of important microelements such as calcium, iodine, magnesium. The content of healthy fats in the composition increases.

You should not overuse smoked lamprey when following a diet aimed at losing weight. A salty dish helps retain fluids in the body, which worsens the process of losing extra pounds.

Preparation

Lampreys are fried, baked, smoked and pickled. I won’t tell you about how to smoke it, because I personally have never tried it. But I don’t recommend boiling it, because if some particles of mucus remain, the toxic substances will pass into the bodies of the nine-eyes. True, I read that Portuguese chefs manage to cook boiled lampreys, but they don’t give out the secret. However, to be honest, he is not very interesting to me.

When frying, lampreys are breaded or not; they are kept in a hot frying pan for about 4 minutes on each side.

At the same time, fat is rendered, which makes up a little more than a third of the total mass and - attention! - is a highly perishable product. This time is enough to protect the future dish from poisons

I prefer to lightly bread, sprinkle with lemon and bake in the oven for half an hour. The most patient workers say that before hot processing they marinate the prepared carcasses in red wine for a whole day - I’ve never tried it, so I mention it “in a purely theoretical sense.”

As a rule, I take 4 - 5 pieces 25 - 30 cm long (after all, the pleasure “bites” at the price). There are enough of them to fill a 700-800 gram jar, naturally pre-sterilized. After baking, I place the lampreys on a plate and, while they cool, prepare the marinade.

Different housewives have their own approaches to proportions, but I like it to have a mild taste. I heat a glass of water with 2 tbsp. spoons of vegetable oil, 1 tbsp. spoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of sugar. Without removing from the heat, add 2 - 3 cloves, 1 juniper berry, 2 - 3 slices of dried parsnip root, half a bay leaf, a small piece of cinnamon (or ground - 1/3 teaspoon), black and allspice peas to the hot solution - 2 pieces each, a dessert spoon of lemon juice and a heel of lemon with zest. Lastly, just before boiling - 1 tbsp. a spoonful of vinegar.

Bring to a boil under the lid and turn off the heat. I ignore the advice to flavor the marinade with sauteed carrots and onions or add onion rings to it at the very end, I don’t know why - I just don’t want to add them. Besides, if for some reason I need to scald the onion to rid it of bitterness, then I drain the water, but I have to leave it here - I don’t like it.

I cut the lampreys into pieces 4 - 5 cm (some people throw away their heads or even tails, but not me!), put them in a jar and pour hot marinade over them. After waiting to cool to room temperature, I put it in the refrigerator. After a day or two, the liquid becomes jelly-like. They say that within 24 hours the pickled lampreys are ready. Maybe, but I do the old fashioned thing of waiting 3 days.

Salting and marinating

There are two ways to marinate lamprey: wet and dry. The composition of the marinade in the first method may vary. The classic recipe involves the use of salt.

Dry method

For salting, use medium-sized table salt. Usually you need at least 50-100 g per 1 kg - it’s better not to save. The fish is rubbed on all sides, placed in a container, and additionally sprinkled with salt.

Keep in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours. Additionally, you can use black pepper and other spices.

Wet method

It is necessary to prepare 1.5 liters of brine for every 1 kg of lamprey. For the specified amount of water, take at least 50 g of salt.

Bring the brine to a boil, cool to room temperature, and place lamprey carcasses in it for 2 hours. Then the fish is taken out and ventilated for 1 hour. After this procedure, the meat becomes denser.

Advice! You can check the concentration by placing raw potatoes in salt water. If the solution is strong enough, the root tuber will float.

Marinade with honey

To add a sweet taste, lamprey can be marinated at home using honey:

• 2 liters of water and 100 ml of lemon juice;
• 100 g melted honey;
• 15 g salt, ground pepper to taste;
• 150 ml sunflower oil;
• 10 g cinnamon.

Bring the water to a boil along with salt, cinnamon, and pepper. When it cools, add oil, honey, lemon juice. Immerse the lamprey in the solution and marinate for at least 2-3 hours.

Kefir marinade

To prepare the filling according to this recipe, you need to take:

• 200 ml fresh kefir;
• 50 g sunflower oil;
• 1 tbsp. l. salt, 1 tsp. sugar, black pepper to taste;
• 2 cloves of garlic;
• a few mint leaves.

First mix kefir and butter, then add sugar and salt. Then they add spices - black pepper or others to taste. Mint and garlic are crushed and placed in kefir. The lamprey is marinated for up to 8 hours.

With spices

To prepare this recipe for 1 liter of water you need:

• 200 g salt and ground pepper to taste;
• 3-4 pcs. laurel leaf;
• thyme, dried oregano 0.5-1 tsp. without slide;
• a couple of pinches of nutmeg;
• fresh or dried dill to taste.

For 1 kg of lamprey carcasses you will need at least 1.5 liters of saturated marinade. First, dissolve salt in water, add spices and herbs, and bring to a boil. When the mixture has cooled, place the fish in it for 2 hours. After marinating, the fish is ventilated for at least 1 hour.

Wine-herbal

An unusual smoked lamprey is obtained by first marinating it in a marinade with herbs and white wine:

• mix 80 ml of dry white wine with 5 tbsp. l. vegetable oil;
• add 100 g of chopped onions;
• mix with 2 cloves of chopped garlic;
• add 3 crushed mint leaves;
• add 2 sprigs of rosemary;
• season with 0.5 tsp. ground thyme, paprika, marjoram, hot red pepper.

After preparation, the mixture is salted to taste, and the lamprey is marinated in it.

Lampreys are a rare delicacy.

The lamprey inspires such disgust in most people with its appearance that not everyone will dare not only try it, but even look at it without shuddering. So much the better for a true connoisseur - you and I will get more.

Lamprey, like smelt, is a seasonal food. Unlike smelt, which rises to the Neva to spawn in the spring, lamprey spawns in late November - mid-December. It is customary to eat it at this time.

The fresher the lamprey, the tastier it is. Ideally, of course, she should be alive. In this case, you will have additional pleasure - you can have fun watching the store cashier run away screaming from your purchase. If you come across already dormant lampreys for sale, it’s okay, but in this case you will have to choose carefully. Fresh lamprey should not be pale, its gill openings and eyes should be clean, and its body should be flexible.

Fried lampreys.

Once brought home, lampreys should be cooked immediately. Place the purchase in a spacious bowl or small basin, drain the water and add salt at the rate of 2-3 tbsp. l. per kilogram. The salt will make the lampreys fall asleep, and the mucus from their body will be washed off better. Soak the lampreys in salt for 15-20 minutes, rinse off mucus and foam and cover with salt again. Repeat the process a couple more times until most of the mucus is removed.

Yes, for the incredulous: this is the process of cleaning lampreys. Lampreys do not have any insides, because for the entire period after the transformation from a larva into a mature individual, they simply do not eat anything. And they don't have scales either. So there is nothing to clean.

Place the washed lampreys in rows on a dry baking sheet or in a mold of sufficient size and place in an oven preheated to 180-200 degrees. Don’t worry, they won’t burn - lamprey is a fairly fatty fish, its own fat is enough for it.

Fry, or rather, bake lampreys for about half an hour. Try not to dry them out - the lamprey should be tender. After the characteristic smell appears, when all the juice in the form has evaporated, continue to fry them for another five to seven minutes and immediately begin to set the table - it is best to eat lampreys hot, straight from the oven. When you place the lampreys on a dish, remember that in the form in which we cooked them there was a real treasure left - the remains of the juice. Add to it a few tablespoons of hot water (or better yet, white wine), a little sherry vinegar (however, any wine vinegar will do, but don’t get carried away with flavored ones), stir until smooth and pour the resulting sauce over the dish with lampreys.

Lampreys do not require any side dish - any side dish will overpower their delicate and delicate taste. Slice a lemon, pinch off a couple of sprigs of parsley, a leaf of lettuce - and that's enough. Dry white wine or light beer should be served with lampreys. Bon appetit!

Notes from the Old Fox™

Virtual hole combined with kitchen

Another “first meeting”.

As was said, I bought 2 kg of it out of dope. live excellent parasites of lampreys:

I let them sit in a basin of water for 4 hours so that the creatures could get rid of their internal accumulations. and drained the water. Having looked at their fuss and indignant attempts to get free, he poured them half a kilo of coarse salt from the bottom of his heart:

Wearing a rubber glove (MANDATORY! Well, unless you want to experience the languid touches of their teeth and suction cups), with rotational movements we bring everything to this condition and watch them slowly sink into a good eternal sleep:

After letting it sleep a little, rinse thoroughly and add salt again:

Holding the head with one hand and sprinkling salt with the other hand, we clean off the dirt from head to tail (at the same time, all the excess that could still remain in the intestines comes out). We repeat the procedure a couple of times and as a result we have the following:

Rhetorical question: “to gut or not to gut?” I decided for myself in favor of the second option (and as it turned out later, I was right). Set aside five pieces for frying and sprinkle with salt and pepper:

We treat the rest less humanely. Heads and tails are in the trash. Many of the lampreys have caviar:

As a result we get:

And rinse thoroughly again:

Place on a greased frying pan (because the lampreys themselves are fatty and will still leak):

Traditionally we fry 2 sides:

And put it in a marinating container, putting the onion in the first layer:

Layering each layer of fish with onions, fill the container. The last layer is the onion:

Prepare a standard marinade (salt + sugar + allspice + black peas + cloves + bay leaves - let it boil, turn off + vinegar):

Pour fish with onions:

And we send it to a cool place for a day. In the meantime, it’s marinating - a small bonus. Take the reserved and peppered fish and:

With beer - a world thing. Meanwhile, after a day we remove the lid and observe the amazing aroma:

Innings

Although the “nine-eyes” are not fish, when setting the table it is most convenient to place them in a fish plate - a herring bowl or a sprat bowl with sides. You can mix part of the marinade with mustard (approximately in the following proportion: for 2 tablespoons of marinade - 1 tablespoon of mustard) and pour this mixture over the dish. You can line the edges with lemon slices and/or olives.

* * *

Despite all the troublesome preparation, the delicious taste of pickled lampreys convincingly demonstrates that “it’s worth it.” Just lick your fingers! My family members, having tasted home-pickled lampreys, completely refuse store-bought ones. Of course, lampreys are a delicacy recognized in world cuisine. However, some say that it’s not for everyone. And what kind of food is not for everyone?! That's it.

If you eat a dish of eight lampreys, don’t think that you’ve eaten an octopus!

Soviet-era wall inscription in the “painted” cafe of the Moscow Central House of Writers

Baked lampreys

• We will need:
• lamprey
• flour
• salt
• pepper

At the market, near a stall with fresh fish, I stumbled upon an unusual one. Hm. on a tray with unusual contents - it could only be called fish with a stretch. Some kind of snakes, some kind of giant leeches.

The price tag said Lampreys. And then associations with some delicacies surfaced in my memory. Even though they barely matched the appearance